Display packaging has become an important and complex art. Its primary function has been to permit customers to see and evaluate products prior to purchase. The cost of inventorying and selling goods often approaches and even exceeds the cost of production. In many instances the proposed selling price or the value of the goods to prospective buyers is too low to permit selling by a salesperson qualified to assist the buyer in deliberations about a purchase. To display a product in a package in which it is visible and which bears information about quality, utility, price, etc. is often a much more reliable way to inform potential customers than to rely on the memory of a salesman responsible to assist in the sale of many products.
Pressures to reduce distribution costs has given steadily increasing importance to display packaging, and have resulted in attempted extension of its use to new kinds of products. Thus, for example, attempts have been made to extend display packaging to small, high value articles. The purpose of packaging is to segregate and protect goods and to provide surfaces on which information can be imprinted. The display quality is incorporated to permit inspection by the prospective purchaser. That implies handling by the prospective purchaser and, in the case of small, high value products, it implies opportunity for theft and increased exposure to attempted theft.
The display package creator has as his task to create a package which accommodates the product's size and shape, which permits adequate viewing, which can withstand handling, which provides adequately for explanatory material and brand name identification, which incorporates aesthetic appeal, and which discourages theft. The task is to provide all that and, invariably in practice, to provide it at minimum cost. Many display packages in the past have met those criteria. However, little has been done to provide display packaging which will also serve as the after sale storage receptical for the product.
Objects like postage stamps, collector coins, and gem stones which are purchased for other than utilitarian values can also be the subject of display packaging and for such goods the display package can be made to serve both as a storage receptical and as a means to enhance appeal of the goods.
The spring-closed, satin-lined, individual box for rings and jewelry is an example. However, such boxes do not meet some of the other criteria that is imposed on display packaging. They cannot, for example, deter theft.
The past has not produced a display package which combines low cost, long shelf life, the ability to withstand much handling, aesthetic appeal, ability to enhance the appearance of goods, deter theft, require minimum storage space, and serve as a permanent storage container for the goods. In particular, the display packaging of the past for small, high and medium value non-utilitarian goods has been less desirable and satisfactory than what this invention has shown to be possible.
Gem stones have been particularly difficult to package. Unlike stamps and coins, which are often collected and stored and displayed in sets or with many others, gem stones are often owned and displayed singly. They are customarily displayed by incorporating them into a piece of jewelry or, if unmounted, by holding them unprotected in the viewer's hand. A display package in which unmounted gem stones can be both protected and adequately viewed has not been available.